I've been pondering the nature of music and audio recently and I've had some thoughts I'd like to share.

What is the limit of the human mind's ability to perceive? At what point do we "black out" because the stimuli is too powerful? If a song is too loud, our ears hurt. If a light is too bright or flashes too fast, we might have an epileptic seizure. If we are touched too hard, we will feel pain. Smelling certain things will harm us as will eating certain things.

Is audio all there is to the concept of "music" ? I don't think so at all.

Is it possible to hear / perceive a sound so complex that your brain is unable to process it unless it's slowed down? Of course. A complex sound is more difficult to understand when it's pitched up then when it is pitched down.

Psychologically, there are "sounds" in all of our heads that would be difficult to convey to others using ears. You'd have to use some form of suggestion rather than actually making the sound. For instance, how would you incorporate the threshold of pain into a song without actually hurting someone if hearing the threshold of pain... causes pain? How would you possible do that?

You'd probably have to use a different sense to suggest it (not to cause pain, but to suggest hearing the threshold of pain in a musical piece).

What is sound and how is it tied to language and emotion? How is music and sound linked to our subconscious? The language you speak, the environment you live in, the memories in your subconscious (or in the subconscious of the community you live in) will all affect your perception of music.

Music... the language of music is based on time, rhythm, pitch, tone, texture... and so much more.

I've made emotional songs that reflect feelings such as grandiose delusion, paranoia, happiness, sarcasm, and sadness. To me, these songs perfectly represent such feelings, but to someone with a completely different musical subconscious, these words or emotions might not come to mind.

My basic point: there is music in sight, music in touch, music in scent, music in taste, as well as music in hearing. Aesthetically pleasing properties can be synchronized between different senses... synaesthetic "music" is most certainly possible.

Please read this article if you haven't:
A Brief History of Synaesthesia and Music
by Sean A. Day February 21, 2001 ( http://www.thereminvox.com/story/28 )

Do you agree? Do you disagree?

Some of you have already pondered this, some of you already understand this, and to the rest of you, this might be a new idea.

I want to learn more about this from anyone who has experienced or thought about such things in depth. I've been having synaesthetic experiences lately, and composing music based on it. Every time I hear a song that I made while smelling a certain scent / aroma, I am reminded of that scent in a powerful way. More powerful than I have ever experienced in my life.

This has been happening while completely sober and it's quite pleasing and exciting.

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"If she's old enough to crawl, she's already in position." -- Pedobear

Psychoacoustics relates to synaesthesia because it's (most likely, almost certainly) possible to psychologically suggest acoustic phenomena through another sense or by using meta-acoustic synthesis.

You would probably need to train others to understand this and use their imagination appropriately. Perhaps "synaesthesia" is a language that we're on the verge of discovering. The same way "music" is a language that we discovered is the same way we could be on the brink of a new era in perception.

This is just my guess. That's how my OP relates to psychoacoustics.

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"If she's old enough to crawl, she's already in position." -- Pedobear

I think some of these concepts have been a driving force behind a lot of the psychedelic downtempo explosion. To create musical atmospheres so rich and complex that they illict other senses. I don't think anyone has specifically tried to cause synaesthesia though. It's an interesting concept that could use more exploration.

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Synaesthesia is more than being "reminded" of something in a powerful way, it's an actual crossing of senses. You aren't just "reminded" of a thing, you actually experience it with the right trigger. Not very many people are truly synaesthetic...

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Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles Synaesthesia is more than being "reminded" of something in a powerful way, it's an actual crossing of senses. You aren't just "reminded" of a thing, you actually experience it with the right trigger. Not very many people are truly synaesthetic...

I too wanted to say this. We should not confuse association with synaesthesia.

I think most people who listen to music can extract some sort of tactile properties from it, a vague impression of feel, weight, physical texture etc. And also a blurry mapping of the structure of the music, in 2 or 3 dimensions, which would be the visual representation. But i think this has more to do with thought and imagination than with the experience of (in this case) non-aural stimuli derived from sound.

Last edited by SMC on Aug-20-2009 at 02:05

kaostrance

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Originally posted by jvankampen20 I have been following Tiesto since 99. I was immediately enthralled by what I still regard the best electronic CD ever compiled, Magik VI Live in Amsterdam. This CD is loaded with uplifting, energetic, blood moving tracks intricately mixed with angelic perfection. From that moment on, I could feel the magik flowing through my veins while listening to the music that Tijs carefully samples and produces. His creativity allows him to develop the concepts of songs that bring life and energy to people around the world.

hasn't music always been 'psychoacoustic'?

i mean, since man had, well, a psyche?

you guys are smokin some serious fckin weed in this thread

quote:

Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles Synaesthesia is more than being "reminded" of something in a powerful way, it's an actual crossing of senses. You aren't just "reminded" of a thing, you actually experience it with the right trigger. Not very many people are truly synaesthetic...

One of the philly guys has the real deal. Full out colors entering his field of vision. Maybe Dozia? I'll have to ask around I forget now

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Originally posted by Guest you guys are smokin some serious fckin weed in this thread

No.

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Originally posted by nefardec hasn't music always been 'psychoacoustic'? i mean, since man had, well, a psyche?

Thank you, this is a better interpretation. I agree with it completely.

Imagine if someone had such complete understanding of acoustics that they were able to create a system that would allow them to perfectly recreate acoustic phenomena (in their mind, not things that they've heard in reality) the same way we can easily recreate points and lines in order to construct higher dimensional shapes. Not limited by Music Theory, just completely free to express their exact ideas without any compromise.

Psychoacoustics, in my mind, is a kind of geometry for sound and time that allows you to better understand and translate the musical / acoustic concepts in your mind in such a way that they perfectly convey ideas that would have been incredibly complex (imagine a 3 minute acoustic event that would take years to render using current CPUs... and would cripple your computer if you attempted to play it in real-time. We have ray-tracing and advanced 3D films and games that take a long time to render, right? Do you think that the same thing doesn't exist for audio?) to create using abstract, external means.

Think of emotions... Yes! That's it, imagine if you had to use an instrument or program (see where I'm going with this) to convey something as simple as a smile or the fact that you're happy or unhappy (or even more complex like sarcasm, anxiety, etc.)

Imagine if you had to draw your face or your tone of voice every time it changed... the same you have to "play" psychoacoustic ideas every time you have them. Music in it's current form does have some glaring limitations.

In our minds, we have conceptual ideas about acoustics and music that are extremely difficult to create using conventional means because of the inherent limitations artificially imposed on us by the tools, instruments, and programs we employ when we want to create music.

There are sounds that nobody has ever "heard" because they don't exist in nature. The same way your reverb effect plug-in can create environments that simply don't exist in nature (only in the psyche) is the same way that new plug-ins and techniques and musical concepts which don't even exist yet will be able to create sounds that nobody on this planet has heard of or thought yet.

Psychoacoustics will enhance our understanding of the relationship between the psyche and acoustics to a highly refined point, allowing imaginative people who think in sound to be more expressive and productive with less effort. I am excited about the possibilities.

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"If she's old enough to crawl, she's already in position." -- Pedobear

THE FUTURE

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www.misterfalconmusic.com

Nice I like this article on "psychoacoustics", very interesting